Getting The Most Out of Your Possessions

With the busy shopping season quickly approaching, I am reminded on just how many things that people buy as they feel that they need a particular item when really they already have something that is perfectly usable for their needs. My best personal example that often causes a lot of people to become extremely baffled and amazed is the home computer that I use to do a lot of work and Internet browsing on.

Whenever I meet new people, I would get to know what they are all about and likewise they would learn about my background and experiences. The natural assumption by most is that since money isn’t really an obstacle and that the Internet is one of my prime focuses, I should be using nothing but the top of the line products as a person in my situation must need the latest and greatest. I always softly reply to that comment by mentioning about the specs of one of my computers as the reaction has always been the same. Just to list some basics, the computer that I am using right now to compose this message has a Pentium II 350 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, an 8MB video card and a hard disk drive consisting of 6.4 gigabytes of space. That probably just knocked a lot of people off their seats.

What exactly can I do with this computer? I can do all of my accounting tasks, use various word processors and graphics programs, manage various Internet sites and can even do extra curricular things such as watching TV on my PC. I bought this computer back in about 1998 and my expectation was at minimum to use it for a good five years. It’s been about 7 years now and I can still use it for a lot of work. I could easily just buy a new computer every year or so, but I’m sure even most computer users would agree that technology progresses so fast that what you pay top dollars for today will drastically drop in value very soon. So why not get the most of what you have instead of just recklessly spending your hard earned money?

Although my example is a little extreme, you pretty much see a scenario like this everyday such as a couple wanting to buy the latest digital camera because the newer models have a higher spec even though what they currently have is perfectly fine for their needs. This can also be especially important for business people as time and time again I see people who would throw away or replace products that are perfectly usable just because they have not exceeded their current budget that was set aside for office materials. Try to get the most out of what you have and you’ll be surprised how much money you can often save because of it.